Saturday, November 28, 2009

Ah, I love time off. I am spending Thanksgiving at my mother's house in Massachusetts, and I'm taking this down-time to organize my Flickr.Originally, I had one Set for "Knitting", and one Set for "Crochet". I have now created a Collection for "Knit and Crochet," in which I have added sets for each of my knitting and crochet projects for categories. Much easier to find what I'm looking for.

Starting Today at noon, the Geeks With Issues will once again be hitting the virtual trail -- Oregon Trail, that is. For 24 hours straight, the Geeks will hunt 8-bit squirrels, ford electronic rivers, and try to avoid cholera, all while raising money for some outstanding charities. And you can be a part of it! Just make a pledge!

To help get people enthused for this event, Tough Love Knitters is participating in a special give-away. The lucky chosen viewer will get a custom-made, knitted, "geek craft" item. This can be anything the winner wants!* A hat, gloves, pillow, Nintendo DS cozy! I will work with the winner to design something he or she will really love.

I started with the shoes, based on a baby booty pattern, and worked up each let separately in the round. I stopped every few inches to stuff the body with cotton. I joined the legs together around where the crotch would be, and widened it a little.

I added the detailing on the fly and the pockets at this point.

I then switched to the sweater color and worked about 2 or 3 rows in the round.

This was the important part, and where I ultimately lost track of the writing down the patter.

I separated the front of the sweater from the back and sides. Trying to do it in the round caused the argyle sections to tug and bunch. I worked the argyle pattern up the front of the sweater, and separately worked the back and sides of the sweater. I added the pink lines to the argyle, then used an invisible stitch to attach the front and back of the sweater.

Now, the shoulders were really tricky, and I can't quite explain it. I think I sewed up both sides all the way to the top, joined the front of back of the sweater, and decreased.

The arms are made in the round, starting with the hand color and switching to the sweater color. Stuff it along the way. At the top, instead of decreasing it, I sewed each stitch onto the side of the body and shoulder.

Before decreasing down to the neck, make sure to stuff the body.

I decreased and switched to white for the undershirt color, then switched to the skin color. A few rows of the neck, then increase evenly around to make the head. I think I had the stitches across 4 needles, with the face section in the middle of one needled (so it doesn't show any lines or increases), and increased at the end of each needle.

Then for the back of the head, as I was decreasing for the top, I switched to the hair color, so the hair blended in better. Stuff the head as before you close.

I did the eyes and face features after it was closed on the top, but it might be easier to do them before you close.

For the hair, I cut 2-inch lengths of yarn and tied them into the "scalp". When I had filled the head, I wet all the hair and "styled" it (straightened pieces and placed them where I wanted them), and then cut it to the length I wanted.

For more dolls, see later posts for "Barack Obama" and "Michael Phelps".

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

I have been looking for place to store some of my knitting patterns and updates. I am an avid user of Ravelry.com, but because it's a private site, I can't share any of my custom patterns and projects with non-users. This blog will be a place for my personal patterns, project updates, and awesome knitting things that I have collected!